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College of Engineering, University of Idaho - July 03, 2009

College of Engineering

Office of the Dean
College of Engineering
Janssen Engineering 125
PO Box 441011
Moscow, ID 83844-1011
http://www.engr.uidaho.edu/
deanengr@uidaho.edu
Office: 208.885.6479
Fax: 208.885.6645

 

 

 

 

 

 

UI Engineering Research Produces Breakthroughs for Navy's Next-Generation Ship Radars and Communications

Electrical engineering graduate students Benton O'Neil (left) and Ryan Adams test the circulator they helped design on a network analyzer in the UI Electromagnetic Waves Lab. Professor Jeffrey Young is principal investigator for the project. Electrical engineering graduate students Benton O'Neil (left) and Ryan Adams test the circulator they helped design on a network analyzer in the UI Electromagnetic Waves Lab. Professor Jeffrey Young is principal investigator for the project.

The push to develop smaller, lighter, efficient, cost effective military communications technologies in University of Idaho laboratories has led to some breakthrough research in materials fabrication.

Professors Yang-Ki Hong, David McIlroy, Richard Wells, Wei Jiang Yeh and Jeffrey Young of the Microelectronics Research and Communications Institute (MRCI) have been working to develop thick hexaferrite films for use in wideband circulator devices essential to military communications. The devices are found in a variety of military technologies, including point-to-point communication and radar systems.

Ferrite is magnetic material comprised of iron oxide and other chemical compounds. It is used in devices like circulators, which allow microwave communications systems to receive and transmit electromagnetic signals simultaneously. In such applications, ferrite films are expected to reduce manufacturing costs, increase microwave communications efficiency and result in smaller, light-weight communications devices. Ferrite films can also be used effectively in filters, isolators, inductors and phase shifters, which are also critical devices in military systems.

Every branch of the Department of Defense is currently looking to develop next generation microwave communication technologies to support a highly mobile, adaptable and agile military. The Navy, particularly, has demonstrated interest in materials science that might lead to improved technologies. Office of Naval Research (ONR) grants support the UI's Advanced Microwave Ferrite Research (AMFeR) project, which began in March 2004.

AMFeR researchers are an interdisciplinary team of professors and students. UI's Hong (materials science and engineering), McIlroy (physics) and Yeh (physics) have focused their efforts on the fabrication of microwave hexaferrite films, while Richard Wells and his students (electrical and computer engineering) have devised mathematical and computer models to understand the micro magnetic structure of the films. Microwave device design was accomplished by professor Young and his students.

The AMFeR team uses state-of-the-art research, fabrication and characterization facilities, including a Chemical Vapor deposition system laboratory and a millimeter-wave and microwave Laboratory. Other equipment includes a magnetron sputtering system and a liquid phase epitaxy system.

They have had unprecedented success in two key areas of the research: the growth of 107 micron single crystalline hexaferrite films and the fabrication of several wideband microwave circulators for radar applications.

The breakthroughs have not gone unnoticed by the ONR, which has recognized, in particular, professor Hong's strides in the development of magnetic thick films. Hong and his students are the first in the world to produce 107 micron thick, c-axis oriented, single crystalline hexaferrite film in the out-of-plane direction.

The Navy praised Hong's results as "outstanding" and has congratulated the team for making progress toward "the Navy's next generation agile-bandwidth RF goals."

Hong's research surmounted many long-standing obstacles in film growth development by considering a wide variety of techniques and materials.

"If you have little funding, the changes that you can make are small. When you have a decent amount of support, you can really make big changes in your approach to the problem, which is what we have done." said McIlroy. "The goal is to succeed, so we use those funds to maximize the probability that we will succeed."

The AMFeR team maximizes the probability of success by attacking the problem from different academic perspectives, sharing individual successes and failures, and combining the approaches that work best to create interdisciplinary solutions.

"We are dealing with some very fundamental scientific issues of how to work with magnetic materials in an integrated circuit or on a chip," said Young. "This is fundamentally changing the way we fabricate and integrate magnetic materials into existing communications circuitry."

"We've realized that we are shedding new light on this topic," said McIlroy. "By the time we get done, we hope to help the scientific community reach consensus on the feasibility of design and other issues."

"We are looking at how to make a circulator wider band, so more information can be processed through it; make it more efficient, so we don't lose too much energy in the system; and, if we can, to make it smaller and lighter weight," said Young.

Once the device emerges from UI labs, the technology will be transferred to the Navy and evaluated for use in large-scale shipboard systems, including missile guidance and targeting systems. The UI team hopes to have a prototype built and tested by the end of 2007.

The project has resulted in multiple patent applications through the Idaho Research Foundation. Future applications and incarnations of the technologies for air and land-based military operations are also likely, as are eventual industrial uses, Young said, but industrial applications are not the focus of this research. "At the end of the day, we hope to lay the foundation of how to fabricate integrated ferrite microwave devices for military communication systems."

Over the course of the project, AMFeR has employed 15 graduate students and 10 undergraduates. Students currently working on the project are: Ronald Bowling, Boise; Ryan Adams, Pocatello; Miles Beaux, Sagle; Benton O'Neil, Kirkland, Wash.; Ankur Garg, Bikaner, India; Yanko Kranov, Sofia, Bulgaria; Allaaedeen Abuzir, Egypt; Feng Xie, Beijing, China; Jeevan Jalli, Hyderabad, India; Sung-Hoon Gee; Chung-Chih Juan; and Daqing Zhang Tejasvi.

UI is one of only a few universities in the country addressing the scientific challenges of microwave ferrite film development for military applications.

Photograph courtesy of UI Communications

February 21, 2006